


red cold river

by neondragons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neondragons/pseuds/neondragons
Summary: He's losing Deidara, inch by fucking inch.
Relationships: Deidara/Tobi (Naruto), Deidara/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 10
Kudos: 124





	red cold river

**Author's Note:**

> Another un-betaed tobidei fic! Lately, I've been practicing and tobidei happens to be the pairing I like at the moment so please bear with me lol

When Obito enters the room they rented for the night, the last thing he expected to see was four dead bodies. 

Deidara sits on the cot, eyes closed, holding a bloodied kunai tightly that his knuckles have turned white. He's too still. The door makes a quiet click as Obito closes it and Deidara snaps his eyes open, tensing. 

"It's me." Obito says, ignoring the bodies on the floor, and catalogues every miniscule movement that Deidara makes. 

When he steps out of the shadows, Deidara doesn't relax, but he does let go of the kunai. It clatters on the floor. Deidara heaves a sigh and falls back on the bed, not a damn sound coming out of his usually chatty mouth. It bothers Obito greatly. When he convinced the artist to leave the Akatsuki with him, Deidara had been ecstatic. And then Obito told him all the details— about himself, about Akatsuki, about _Madara_ — and Deidara refused to speak with him since then. They've been on the run for three weeks now and Deidara has only begun talking to him again. 

Then, this happened. Obito's not an idiot. He knows why those men are dead and in _their_ room. 

He crosses the gap between them in three strides, kicking away a body in the process. "Talk to me, Deidara." 

Deidara opens his eyes— both of them. His scope was destroyed two weeks ago, when they fought Hunter Nin south of Fire Country. They emerged victorious, but they hadn't got the time to get a replacement before they had to flee towards Mist Country. 

"What's there to talk about, hm?" Deidara asks, drawling. "They saw us come up here, saw you leave, and thought I'm easy prey, yeah."

Obito knows rage— he's intimately familiar with it. But this anger, the disgust— it's guttural and he's only ever felt it once in his life. His hand twitch under the plain black coat he wears, imagining a struggling body and a frantic pulse underneath his palms. He sees red. He's not in the habit of desecrating corpses but _just this once_ , he'll make an exception. 

He pulls a kunai out of thin air and whirls around to cut the nearest body, wishing he had arrived sooner. Not to save Deidara, the younger man can take care of himself, but to cast a genjutsu and have them visit hell for the remaining moments of their pathetic lives. A shame. Obito would have enjoyed hearing those screams as he skins them alive. 

He kneels on the floor, coagulated blood seeping into his pants. He brings down a kunai to a skull and feels his chest shudder in cathartic pleasure when bone cracks and gives under his weapon. 

Then it dims, when the body doesn't even twitch. 

"Are you done?" Deidara asks. He's sitting up now, bringing all his hair into a high ponytail— Obito has yet to decide if he likes it. It gives him a full view of his partner's icy blue eyes, but at the same time, Obito kind of misses Deidara's tiny ponytail. "They're dead, hm. Let's clean up here and go to sleep."

Deidara's face and clothes are splattered with crimson, but strangely, his hands are immaculate. Even the mouths are tight-lipped. 

With one fluid movement, Obito pushes from the ground and surges up to meet Deidara's lips in a bruising kiss. 

"What—" Deidara tries to say, "To- _bi-!_ "

Obito grips the back of his neck and kisses him harder, uncaring of the way their teeth clack. Deidara hisses, but he wounds his arms around Obito and drags him close, grunting when Obito pulls the hair tie loose. 

Deidara leans back, frowning. "I just fixed that, asshole." He presses a hard kiss on Obito's mouth, panting, "You're gonna fix that for me, hm?"

Not liking the way he's resting all his weight on Deidara, Obito hefts Deidara and drops him in the middle of the bed, slotting himself between the space Deidara makes between his thighs. Obito lets his hand brush Deidara's hair before he twists and pulls, earning a broken groan from the artist.

Obito pushes closer and presses a kiss on Deidara's neck, "I love you," He murmurs against smooth skin.

It feels like a lifetime since Obito last said those words to Deidara. It's a mistake he intends to fix. 

Obito knew it was a risk telling Deidara of Tsuki no me, because it's all wrapped in the idea of Rin— saving Rin, seeing Rin, _having_ Rin, and telling Deidara means the artist has to hear Obito confess how the years had failed to dim his love for her. 

Obito loves Rin, it's impossible for him not to. He doesn't think he'll ever stop loving the girl that saw Uchiha Obito.

But he's not— for all that Obito uses the name, he's not Uchiha Obito anymore. He's not just Uchiha Obito anymore. 

He's Tobi, he's Madara, he's _Obito_. He's an amalgamation of all the names he used in his life. And for all the inconsistencies and differences that each and every one of his names has, there's one undeniable constant: he loves Deidara. 

Deidara is the single, most terrifying, brightest person Obito's ever known. This magnificent man deserves all of him and Obito will not disrespect him by loving him with a heart occupied by hatred and a memory. If Obito will love Deidara, he will do it with all his heart, or he won't deserve Deidara at all. 

He clutches Deidara closer, as if closing the physical distance between them can break down the walls that they erected unknowingly. Obito _needs_ Deidara to know. He won't lose him to his own past. Pressing his forehead to Deidara's jaw, Obito inhales sharply. 

He feels Deidara's chest shudder in response. 

Obito raises his head, searching for Deidara's eyes, and what he finds makes his heart lurch. 

There was a time he could read Deidara like an open book, and he took it for granted. He forgot that he was only able to do so because Deidara _allowed_ him. 

To see Deidara's eyes gazing back at him with detachment, Obito realizes that by simply letting everything stew between them, he made a mistake. He's losing Deidara, inch by fucking inch. 

It's startling, as it is terrifying. Obito has never been afraid in his life— furious, vengeful and betrayed, yes. But never afraid. Not since he started wearing his masks. 

He can manipulate and kill his way out of everything, but this? How the hell does he stop _this?_

"Tell me how to fix this." It sounds like he's begging, and he _will_ beg, if he has to. "I can't lose you." 

Deidara's eyes drop, and Obito feels like he's made up of a million shattered glass and his pieces are crumbling one after another.

"I don't know, Tobi." Deidara draws himself in, only prevented by Obito sitting between his knees. He makes a movement as if to pull away, but Obito doesn't let him. 

He grips Deidara's shoulders. Heart in his throat, he grits out. "Deidara, _please._ "

"Don't beg, hm." 

"Then give me an answer before I resort to kneeling at your feet."

Deidara clicks his tongue, avoiding Obito's eyes. "I don't know, yeah? Tobi, maybe we should go—"

"Don't," Obito interrupts, softly, "say that. Don't." 

_Maybe we should go our separate ways._

Like hell. 

His jaw begins to hurt when calloused hands touch his face. Obito stops grinding his teeth. Deidara sighs, thumb smoothing his scarred cheek. 

"I _love_ you." Obito says, and he's begging. 

Deidara smiles, and it's a faded imitation of his usually brazen grin. Obito did that. 

"Until when, yeah?" Deidara's thumb moves to his closed eye, brushing against every single lash. 

Obito's hand circles Deidara's wrist, tilting his head to press his mouth above the pulse. "You always tell me to live in the moment. You _taught_ me that."

"And _you_ taught me to be selfish, hm."

"So be selfish then." Obito grits out, "I'm _yours_. Everything that I am, that I could be, it's _yours_." 

He takes Deidara's hands, and slides his fingers between the loose gaps, squeezing. _Hold me back, damn it._

Desperation is an old friend, and Obito hates it everytime they meet. It always meant he's losing. He wanted, _needed_ Deidara to stay. When Obito lost Rin, she was taken from him and he unleashed his anger to the world. if he loses Deidara now, it's because Deidara chooses to leave him. And where does that leave Obito? 

His heart used to be filled with rage to the brim, until he met Deidara, and then he had to take away the rage, empty his heart and fill it with something he didn’t think he'd get to experience. If Deidara leaves, will all the love Obito’s filled with disappear with the man he loves? Will rage creep back into his heart and turn him against Deidara?

It’s not supposed to be like this.

They should be happy. They were not supposed to crumble together. 

When Deidara’s hands clutch him back, Obito feels his remaining sanity slide back into him, and he takes a shuddering breath. 

“This isn’t how we’re supposed to be, yeah.” Deidara echoes. The mouth on his hand nips at Obito’s palm. “Tobi, wouldn’t you like to continue with your plan? Zetsu will take you back, hm, and Pein will eat up any lies you make up.”

Obito strains his jaw. “And you? I suppose you’ll find the next best battle and die in a raging inferno? Is that what you want, Deidara?”

“I won’t go back to Akatsuki, Tobi.”

“No one’s going back on anything at all!” Obito snaps. 

There’s something unrecognizable in Deidara’s expression. It takes Obito a few beats to recognize, because it looks unusual in his partner’s face. 

Fear. 

Deidara averts his eyes. “We leave Akatsuki and then what, yeah? You have no plans, and I give up my dream, and then what, Tobi? What do we do now? Run and hide away forever?” 

Obito slaps himself mentally. He was too busy trying to keep them both alive that he forgot his greatest worry shouldn’t have been a kunai to their throats while sleeping, but the demons hiding in the shadows while they lay awake. To Obito, Deidara has always been bright, and beautiful. Deidara is the raging inferno that outshines the sun in Obito’s eyes. He is confident and passionate in ways Obito is only starting to comprehend. 

Obito is stupid and careless. His head is so far up his own ass he didn’t even notice his partner drowning in his own doubts. 

Doubts born out of Obito’s irresponsibility. 

He lets go of Deidara’s hand. He feels his heart ache when Deidara makes a pinched expression. 

“Hey,” he says, cupping Deidara’s face between his hands, “Deidara, listen to me.”

“I did that and look where that got me, yeah.” Deidara grumbles petulantly. He still meets Obito’s eyes. 

Obito smooths his thumb on the high rise of Deidara’s cheekbones. “I’m sorry.” he says sincerely. 

Deidara looks like he might pull away, but he stays. His lower lip juts out, a habit Obito knows Deidara himself isn’t aware of. 

“You should be, hm,” Deidara says. 

He nods. “I have no excuse for being a terrible partner since we left Akatsuki and I can only promise to do better from now on, but can I ask you not to stop talking to me? If you think I’m doing something stupid, please tell me. If I hurt you, please tell me. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Deidara. Please believe me.”

“Stop saying please, Tobi, yeah. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Do you promise?”

“And you?” Deidara narrows his eyes. “Do you promise that you…” he hesitates. “That you—”

Obito cuts him off, not liking the doubt that colors Deidara. “That I love you?”

“... Hm.”

He gingerly takes one of Deidara’s hand and presses it to his heart, ignoring the way the mouth nips eagerly at his cloak. “Say my name.”

Deidara’s eyebrow quirks. “Tobi?”

“No.”

“Oh,” says Deidara. “Obito?”

Obito’s chest expands. It’s unnerving, to hear a supposedly dead man’s name uttered by Deidara. It is akin to lightning striking his heart. It beats under Deidara’s hand, loud and strong, and Obito, _Tobi_ , whoever he is, whoever he may be, breathes. 

“Deidara, my heart responds to the way you say my name. Your shape is carved against the walls of my heart, the same way your name is engraved in my bones. The only way I could take you out is if I tear my ribcage open and cut my heart out.” Obito presses his lips on Deidara’s forehead and whispers against his skin. “But I want you to stay there, in me, _with me._ I want to live, Deidara, if you will let me build a life with you.”

Obito only wants one thing. 

For the two of them to discover great happiness together. 

It’s for the same promise of life that Obito shed away his lies and secrecy. He hopes Deidara finds Obito worthy of staying a bit longer in this world, at least until they find out what it truly means to live and love. 

When Deidara cups the scarred side of his face, Obito feels lightheaded. The walls are not gone, but they’re receding, and behind them, Obito sees the future. 

“I am going to be selfish, Tobi. That alright, hm?”

Obito smiles. “All you have to do is ask.”

Deidara leans forward, knocking the tips of their noses together. 

“I want all of you, Uchiha Obito.” His breath warms Obito’s own lips. “Whether it’s your past, your present or your future, give it to me.”

“What do I get in return?”

Deidara grins and all the shadows disappear from his eyes. “Me.”

Obito returns the grin, because this is Deidara asking Obito to surrender himself, as if he didn’t have Obito since the very beginning. 

Loving Deidara is akin to strapping himself to a time bomb, fully aware of his inevitable destruction, and yet, he holds on with no intention of letting go. Let him destroy Obito. 

Deidara makes art out of explosions, Obito only hopes Deidara makes something beautiful out of his devastation. 

He wraps his arms around Deidara’s waist and pulls him close until their grins are almost pressed against each other. He squeezes Deidara tight and whispers his answer to waiting lips. 

“Done.”

**Author's Note:**

> Omake:
> 
> “Hey, Tobi.”
> 
> “Yes, Deidara?”
> 
> “You didn’t forget there are dead bodies on our floor, right? Hm.”
> 
> …
> 
> “Let me use Kamui.”


End file.
